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PEORIA, Ill. (AP) -- A Missouri man who killed his girlfriend's pet Chihuahua by throwing it against a wall has been sentenced to probation at his trial in central Illinois.

Forty-one-year-old Allen Thompson, of Farmington, Mo., pleaded guilty in March to aggravated cruelty to animals. He could have gone to prison for up to three years.

Instead, a judge in Peoria gave him 30 months of probation and ordered him to pay $600 in restitution.

The (Peoria) Journal Star reports (http://bit.ly/11sPccx) that Judge Kevin Lyons took into account letters from Thompson's family saying that he had stopped taking medication for bipolar disorder when he moved to Illinois to live with his girlfriend.

According to court records, Thompson became angry when the dog, named Beep Beep, refused to come out from under a bed.